#84 Driving to Better Data Outcomes with Collaborative Questions - Interview w/ Jean-Michel Coeur

Sign up for Data Mesh Understanding's free roundtable and introduction programs here: https://landing.datameshunderstanding.com/Please Rate and Review us on your podcast app of choice!If you want to be a guest or give feedback (suggestions for topics, comments, etc.), please see hereEpisode list and links to all available episode transcripts here.Provided as a free resource by Data Mesh Understanding / Scott Hirleman. Get in touch with Scott on LinkedIn if you want to chat data mesh.Transcript for this episode (link) provided by Starburst. See their Data Mesh Summit recordings here and their great data mesh resource center here.Jean-Michel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmcoeur/In this episode, Scott interviewed Jean-Michel Coeur, who is the Head of the Data Practice at the consulting company Sourced Group. Jean-Michel has developed a simple three question framework that works well with people asking for data, especially business counterparts. The questions typically lead to collaboration instead of confrontation and gets data consumers to share what they want to accomplish with the data instead of what is their request. It feels more like a friendly chat than an interrogation or "prove to me why this is worth my time". He also recommends following up each question with "the reason I am asking is..." to explain specifically you aren't pushing back, merely information gathering.The three questions:Do you know what this is for?Do you know who is going to use it?Do you know how they are going to use it?Jean-Michel developed his three question framework after watching people struggle for years to properly request data and/or properly understand the use case of data consumers, often delivering solutions that did not meet business needs, wasting everyone's time. Oftentimes, the technical person wouldn't ask the right questions or they couldn't even get to the end data consumer so they didn't really understand the reasons for the data ask.For Jean-Michel, the first question - Do you know what this is for? - helps to set the tone. It is not "why do you want this?", which often makes people defensive. He tells the person making the ask that with more context, his team can better understand how to make what they deliver better. And sometimes, the person making the request will realize they aren't really sure what it will be used for and can go back to the end user. A key is to not be a gatekeeper to the data, both in reality and perception.The second question - Do you know who is going to use it? - starts to drive towards who will consume the data output and how - the use case is pretty important for delivering valuable data after all. For Jean-Michel, asking it in this way can often empower the person making the data request to lead the journey rather than...